Set in Budapest, Hungary. Reviewed on 2017/06: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVON7LGByWT/
This is the kind of book that gives, gives and gives. And by giving, the book is actually digging, digging, digging in. It’s carving itself, crawling in your being, your soul, in YOU without you realizing it. Then after 30-40 pages, the book, the story turns around and looks at you. The book has become a #mirror. You inevitably see yourself reflected in the mirror, the story, the book. So what do you see? I personally saw someone afraid of reading #Kertesz because it’s so devastating and so personal. I just did not want to read about the #Holocaust, the #Shoah while riding the subway on my way to work. But then why not? When is the appropriate time to read about the Holocaust? One very important thing about this book is that it’s not really about the Holocaust and the concentration camps, or at least not in the Hollywood, Schindler’s List type of way. The book is mostly about before George Kaves is deported to #Auschwitz and his eventual return to #Budapest. That’s the groundbreaking part here. Because you can see how Kertesz wanted to draw attention to people’s lives right before and after what we now call the Holocaust, and how it was not so clear cut, how much of a process it was, and how much all of us as part of a #society choose to ignore and even enable things. Because when the story, the book, the mirror turned around and looked at them, as inevitably always does, what did they see? Did they see or choose a difficult #freedom or a comfortable #fate ?
This is simply a #masterpiece and probably one of the best books I have read in the last 10 years.
#fateless #imrekertesz #imrekertész#kertész #hungarianliterature #haunting#hungarianjews #sorstalanság #magyar#nobelprizeforliterature
hebdo_readings 